President: We are justly proud of the result in the development of the Ukrainian army

9 May 2018 - 00:28

President Petro Poroshenko notes that "four years ago, Ukraine was ready to the war with Russia even to a lesser degree than the Soviet Union to the collision with Nazi Germany".

"Last month it became known that the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to Global Firepower analytical center, entered the ten most powerful armies in Europe. And I want to congratulate all Ukrainian military, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak, Chief of the General Staff of Viktor Muzhenko, all Ukrainian soldiers and all Ukrainian people. We gained the eighth place and the first among non-NATO countries," the Head of State said and urged to recall what the Ukrainian army was four years ago.

"We, together, the entire Ukrainian people, are rightly proud of this result in the development of the army. This is due to our soldiers, officers, generals, volunteers, workers of the defense industry complex. Due to every Ukrainian, taxpayer. And I, as Supreme Commander-in-Chief, am also not ashamed of this work, because there is something to report to the public for these four years," the President emphasized, but called for being realists.

"This European ranking does not include the Russian army. Instead, in the global ranking made by the same Global Firepower, the Russian army is the second most powerful in the world after the United States. For us, the armed forces of the Russian Federation are an army of the aggressor-country, which annexed Crimea, occupied part of the Donbas. And it is ready to a full-scale invasion at any moment," he stressed.

"Therefore, we have a lot to do - it's a huge work to strengthen the country's defense capability," the Supreme Commander-in-Chief emphasized.

Petro Poroshenko stresses that the price of victory is important for Ukraine: “And human lives - all together and any one separate - for the Ukrainian Homeland are of an incomparably higher value than for the "Soviet Homeland".

“No war, unfortunately, can do without sacrifices and a decline in living standards. But for us both capitulation and victory at the cost of colossal and inadmissible victims are equally unacceptable. Perhaps a sensible, non-adventurous and responsible approach to the liberation of the occupied territories will require more time, but victory is inevitable. And we have already achieved a lot,” the President noted.

The Head of State reminded that in the spring of 2014, Russia planned to split Ukraine into several pieces. "We disrupted this insidious plan with the heroic will of the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian warriors. We caught hold of the ground, cemented into the map of Europe and the world. We took such strong roots that no force is able to unearth us from our legal and natural place. From the place we've been living in for thousands of years already," he stressed.

According to him, in the summer of 2014, having carefully prepared the operation, immediately after the presidential elections, the Ukrainian troops launched an offensive and released almost two-thirds of the Donbas, which had been occupied almost entirely before. "ATO was already approaching the victorious end. And this was precisely the reason for the invasion of Russian regular troops," the President stressed.

"Since then, our army has been strengthened significantly. And it reliably holds the defense against the largest army on the continent, the army of the Russian Federation as an aggressor-country," Petro Poroshenko emphasized.

“We will definitely win this time as well. With different price, in a different way, by other means. Not only military, not only defensive, but also political-diplomatic ones,” the President said.

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Participation in the events on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation

8 May 2018 - 12:28

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Participation in the events on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation